My name is Audrey Redpath. In late 2013, I started a blog called ‘Queering Comics’ where fans of popular print comics (and eventually cartoons, webcomics, and movies) could submit headcanons that interpreted characters in ways that helped them relate to them, and made them feel represented by the heroes in the stories they loved.
Later, that blog turned into the Queer Comics feed on twitter, and amassed a community of over eight thousand people who wished comics could reflect the world we know a bit better than they do now.
We started covering indie creators, and promoting webcomics with characters in them who were queer like us. But we still hadn’t made anything.
An Anthology of New Heroes
As of Feb 20th submissions for the Oath Anthology of New Heroes, an anthology of queer superhero stories, are now open.
The message that we send when we don’t represent the broader culture in our stories is that ‘You are other’. As a community, as an organism, it is a thing that makes us ill. It is actually bad for us. — Kelly Sue Deconnick (kellysue)
Why the superhero genre?
The lack of representation of LGBTQA+ characters in superhero comics pushes the idea that some people aren’t fit for heroism, and leaves many fans out in the cold without characters they can identify with.
By bringing queer heroes, written by queer storytellers, to the forefront, we can bring a new perspective to the genre, and we can prove that superheroes don’t belong to straight, cisgender, white men. Or we can start, at least.
The Oath Anthology of New Heroes is an anthology of B&W Comics and prose, featuring diverse stories about LGBT superheroes at the formative moment of their journey. We pay pro rates, will fund our print run on kickstarter, and comic pitches will be accepted until March 20th, 2015.
Here’s the Submission info, and we’re excited to hear from you.
If you want to see more comics with diverse LGBTQA heroes, or just want to see this book made, reblog and support us while we put together our stories. It means a lot.
Most of you might have noticed by now that I've moved to a new blog, at audreyredpath. I haven't brought over all my posters because I'm working on sequels (especially for the quote posters featuring gailsimone and tmichaelmartin), but if you're interested in what I'm up to and want to follow along with my projects like She Writes Comics, I'll be blogging over there about them as they unfold.
I've also just launched this big project as part of Queer Comics - a comic and prose anthology featuring queer creators and queer superheroes - and I'd owe a lot to all of you if you'd spread the word.
